Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
|
|
|
Jan 27, 2017 - 08:36pm PT
|
Retro-bolters are a plague.
A disease.
plague
plāɡ/
noun
1.
a contagious bacterial disease characterized by fever and delirium, typically with the formation of buboes (see bubonic plague) and sometimes infection of the lungs ( pneumonic plague ).
"an outbreak of plague"
verb
1.
cause continual trouble or distress to.
"the problems that plagued the company"
synonyms: afflict, bedevil, torment, trouble, beset, dog, curse
"he was plagued by poor health", wooting incessantly.
|
|
jonnyrig
climber
|
|
|
Jan 27, 2017 - 11:35pm PT
|
I think you are being intentionally obtuse, because you just like to fight.
Huh, and I was just thinking you've simply cloned your own evil twin to keep things interesting.
Glad I only bolt sh#t that maybe 100 of the best people in the world wouldn't bother attempting as a 4th class.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 08:27am PT
|
The challenge is to not put yourself and your own climbing style at the center of the universe but to be tolerant of other's styles that do not affect your own or have excessive impact on the resource.
Total bullshit plain and simple. Period. The problem being this piece of completely weak-ass lameness:
...other's styles that do not affect your own or have excessive impact on the resource.
Sure, in any alternate-fact trump-world not beset by rapacious, grid and retrobolting.
...for entertainment...
The real heart of the issue and 'modern climbing' - the bolt and battery-powered transmutation of climbing into just another risk-free, pop-suburban entertainment option for a demographic 85% of whom wouldn't be climbing without bolted routes and would never have been in climbing at all in the '70s.
That's some real f*#king modern 'progress' right there...
|
|
mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 08:28am PT
|
Here is an open letter I submitted to rock and ice in response to this article. JJ the editor only ran two sentences out of my letter.
Steel reserve:
Having just read the recent article, “Yosemite Steel,” I thought I might shed some light on what has obviously been overlooked in the research and fact checking before the article ran.
There is a huge ground up ethic, alive and kicking in Yosemite. Style matters, just as it always has in the Valley. For those people I know establishing new routes in the Valley, high value is placed on style. Ascents done without points of aid are cherished among our group. Most are into the adventure that ground up first ascents offer, an element not found when drilling a route on the way down. Though this style of climbing is not usually highlighted in various articles, it is what shapes a significant portion of the new generation. Part of my generation, who choose not to buy into the change of scope heralding top down hardware installation. The Yosemite ground up ethic has always been clear and concise. The dark cloud arrived when adventure was replaced by convenience.
It was stated as fact in the article: “Today, most new routes, whether bolted or gear protected, are established top down.” This statement never should have made it to press. It is disturbing to read for many reasons, least of which is the absence of truth in the statement. Yosemite is not known for top down routes. On the contrary, it is recognized as the icon of traditional climbing known worldwide for having a strong ground up ethic. El Capitan recently received its first, all free, no falls, ground up first ascent courtesy of Nico Favresse named “Lost in Transletion,” a shining example of the caliber of effort needed to keep the ground up vision on a grand scale.
Of the many teams establishing new routes in Yosemite, folks like Eric Gable, Clint Cummins, Bob Steed, Dan Merrick, Jeff Scheuerell, Bryan Law, Greg Barnes, Linda Jarit, John and Sue Godar, myself and others combined have established hundreds of routes, ground up, in recent years. Many are without protection bolts, using abundant natural features for protection. Most may be moderate in grade but not adventure. Everything from single pitch, to 12 pitch independent lines, with grades as varied as the characters who assign them. Modern classics are now showing up, with lines having formed for some. These moderates are never reported to magazines for a press release. Instead, word-of-mouth and hand drawn topos are typically all the press a new route will get. As always, style is divulged colorfully at night in camp, in front of your peers.
These are a few of the people that make up the majority of Yosemite new route development. The ground up ethic in Yosemite will never be trumped by “the arrival of sport climbing.” If you care to look, the proof is in the numbers.
It is sad that readers are going to get the wrong impression of new routing in Yosemite Valley. I am a bit tired of reading the standard drivel this author pushes upon the climbing community. No regard for a factual base on which to start writing, rather a malleable mess aimed at getting paid.
Best Regards,
Josh Mucci
|
|
chappy
Social climber
ventura
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 08:45am PT
|
Some idiot placed bolts at the top of Five and Dime?? Hope they get chopped. Don't really care how a some one decides to bolt a FA but I do care about needless bolts/convenience bolts etc. The walking monkey guy who wrote the original article needs a serious history lesson (certainly in regards to what transpired between Bachar, Ron and myself years ago). If you are going write something research it. There is enough B.S. out there.
|
|
Josh Holmes
Trad climber
Utarded Californian
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 10:06am PT
|
How about the person who placed them step forward?
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 11:23am PT
|
That blog is James.
That blog post is from years ago I believe?
He's a trad climber and he's completely sarcastic about bolting.
You knee jerked and are trolled by him.
I believe the bolts on top of Five and Dime were put in by Top Ropers or mini trac types.
Relax people, ... the guardians of the gates of Trad climbing in Yosemite are alive and well ......
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 01:16pm PT
|
What has changed among some is the realization that all of climbing needs to get a little perspective on the value of life and just what is the human condition and should stop masturbating to fake invented risk taking while the majority of the remainder of humanity tries to survive.
The remainder of humanity ain't gonna make it. As with our own, all of their efforts are in vain. As this site so often cat-calls: Yer gonna die.
ALL risk is "fake risk." And you can't escape it no matter what you do. If you sit on your couch trying to be "safe," then you die young of sedentary diseases (as you well know). Everything we do is an "odds game," with the one SURE thing being that "the house always wins."
"Extend" your life a bit, and in the end the "extension" was irrelevant. Your efforts to extend might well have even been costly, as you reduced your life to the artificialities of "civilized" society.
What matters (to each of us personally) is the richness and content of our experiences. There is a direct correlation between intentional risk-taking and the depth and vivacity of experiences. Couch potatoes live "sheltered" but shallow lives. People that avoid risk accomplish and experience much less than they might have.
It's now an old saw but worth repeating: All people die; not all people truly live. The whole risk-avoidance mindset is to me, frankly, pathetically useless. But, whatever. To each his/her own.
Except when "his/her own" means altering the character of EXISTING routes. Then your personal risk-aversion has stolen something from the CLIMBING community. And, since you personally don't seem to have a clue what THAT is, it would be better for you to not talk about that which you know not.
Climbing is not serious purpose and never will be. Its an outlet and an escape.
And you hereby demonstrate that you pontificate about that which you know not. Climbing CAN have the MOST serious purpose. It can encapsulate life itself, what life really is making it worth living. It can put life itself in a crucible, enabling one to "take stock" in what is truly the REAL world without benefit of the artificial "padding" that artificially enables us to pretend that we're not dying every second.
MOST of life, for most people is an escape. People live in society-provided, artificial cocoons, pretending that death is not stalking them each and every moment. Then, when the "freak accident" (or another of the countless things that are "the chop") takes them, people like you wring your hands lamenting, "They died too soon."
Ridiculous! They died right on time. As something of a scientist, surely you know this!
And all your risk-aversion isn't going to save you or anybody else. As an MD, you are bound and determined to "save lives." Good on ya. Keep tryin'. You're just one more link in a long causal chain determining when "right on time" is for the person you "saved."
But when you extend that "saving" effort into a sweeping philosophy about the value and meaning of life, well, then you have slipped into the old saw about MDs: Often wrong, never uncertain.
A life well-lived IS a life of risk-taking. Be it business, marriage, a major purchase, getting into your car, or the other bits of the endless litany of "everyday risk" we take, EVERYTHING comes down to a risk/reward ratio. And when you gear up for the SA of a big wall in a deep, dark canyon in winter, well, you'd better have brought your cajones with you, and they had better stay firmly attached, not suddenly and without warning be seen bouncing down the wall after trickling down your pant leg!
What you DON'T get to legitimately do, imo, is suddenly say: "Oh, wow, I don't want to play anymore, so I'll just dumb this down to MY level as it is at this moment. AND, I'll just leave behind that tribute to my 'sins'." Altering an existing route by chicken-drilling is ALWAYS a capitulation that reveals a divided will and a lack of commitment to the 'game' you claimed you were playing.
What you don't get is how artificial your distinction is between "artificial risk" and "real life risk." It's ALL risk, and it's all a game of one sort or another. You pays your money, and you takes your chances. That's LIFE, and there is no "artificial" divide of the sort you assert.
The seriousness of climbing is that it SO directly shoves into your face the FACTS of life itself, the VERY facts that "civilized" people spend their entire lives denying or pretending do not exist. And then death takes them regardless of their best efforts to pretend, and then we pretend that "it wasn't their time," weep, weep, sob, sob.
Climbing puts our "everyday risks" into a crucible and starkly presents the risk/reward ratio to us saying: Choose! Choose right now! That is powerful and unlike any other activity I have ever experienced, including all of my "real life" choices. There is nothing more real, more serious. It is the essence of life itself.
So, if you're going to belittle the value of climbing, then please stay home. That's the only "safe" choice. For you, it's the only REAL choice.
And if you insist on getting out "climbing" with your fundamentally risk-averse approach to it, please, oh please, leave your bolt kit at home!
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 02:09pm PT
|
And one can't even imagine how or why you keep on living or climbing with all the world's troubles at your doorstep. Maybe give the mind-numbing and stupidly irrelevant contrasts a rest.
|
|
Johannsolo
climber
Soul Cal
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 03:28pm PT
|
Great post Richard! You get out of climbing what you put into it.
|
|
Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 04:10pm PT
|
I think Werner's right - James was trolling!
I'm pretty sure he knows I'm not a "Stanford Professor"!
|
|
clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 04:12pm PT
|
The ground up ethic in Yosemite will never be trumped by “the arrival of sport climbing.”
I'll vote for that. No trumping ground up.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 05:28pm PT
|
Great post Richard! You get out of climbing what you put into it.
Thank you.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 05:28pm PT
|
I'll vote for that. No trumping ground up.
Indeed.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 28, 2017 - 11:56pm PT
|
I can live with that because I have done more than most to help others... narcissism and self absorbtion...
LOL
Perfect juxtaposition.
|
|
WyoRockMan
climber
Grizzlyville, WY
|
|
|
Jan 29, 2017 - 12:54am PT
|
Even now, the author of the thread in question (that I have not referenced or used names) could go back and make this right. "Confessing your sins" doesn't get it done.
I don’t know if going back and making it right is possible in this particular case. The route is now a 4 star 5.12R free route. After 39 years, confessing his sins of a single transgression, is about the most that can be done. Is the subsequent fixed iron and bolts now present on the route a result of this grievous act? I would guess not. I think the TR’s “badassedness” comes in large part to the winter attempt of a bigwall by young kids in ’78 and/or the cool historical pictures. I guess some climbers have always been risk adverse.
|
|
drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
|
|
|
Jan 29, 2017 - 09:41am PT
|
Finally a proper WOT from Jenkins.
Probably less than 100 people in the world would dare to even look at it!
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2017 - 09:17am PT
|
what is really important
Pray, tell. What is that?
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2017 - 11:17am PT
|
I hope that helps.
Uhh, not really.
First, I was talking to "Kingtut," who has all and only the moral high ground. I'm looking forward to hearing from MD qua philosopher, as MDs can do all things well.
Second, "helping people" is insufferably vague. For example, there is nothing inconsistent in being a climber in the sense I talk about it AND helping people. These are not mutually-exclusive concepts nor behaviors. So, your theory fails to explicate.
Finally (although I could say more), I was not "deriding" anybody. I was using a recent thread (without naming it) as an exemplar of a general principle. The "pussy bolt" itself was not the issue. The LEAVING it there was the issue. And I can certainly express my opinion that retro-bolting is a plague, which expression I actually think is "helpful." LOL
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!